Oregon State vs #6 Stanford - Go Stanford! It would be sweet to have two Pac-10 teams end up in the top 5, especially after last year's conference meltdown (and this year's predicted sad showing in hoops).

Michigan vs #8 Ohio St - I guess I'll root for Michigan. It wouldn't mind seeing an upset featuring the Yankees of college football as victim.

#13 Oklahoma vs #9 Oklahoma St - If every there were two top-15 teams heading into an arch-rivalry game that I truly didn't care about, this is it.

#10 Michigan St vs Penn St - Go Spartans! Why? Because 10 years ago I won an NCAA hoops pool thanks to Michigan State's victory. Or was it Orel that won? I can't remember. But I hate Penn St. Ok, that's the real reason.

Use Category 2: Postmaster General Discussion. As we all know, on December 3, Patrick R Donahoe will be taking over as Postmaster General after 9 years of John E Potter. No doubt the postal service is facing major challenges - it recently reported losses of $8.5 billion over the last fiscal year, despite cost reductions of $9 billion over the past 2 years. And volume of mail delivered dropped to 170.6 billion from 176.7 billion the previous year (no word on how volume of mail sent matched up with these numbers). But Donahoe, educated at Pittsburgh and MIT, and COO of the Postal Service the past 5 years, is ready for the challenges. "The Postal Service is my bitch," I imagine him saying in lieu of any actual quotes I could find. "I hope she's ready, cuz I'm headin' in!"

Good luck Patrick. And C'mon everyone else...do your part and mail stuff!!*

So there are your two use categories. Enjoy the freedom and enjoy the rest of the long weekend.

*"C'mon everyone - mail stuff!!" - that's my proposal for the Postal Service's new slogan. Please support me in this cause. Donahoe, are you listening??

On the postal service tip, as they move toward no Saturday delivery, why don't they consider spreading out the delivery days better? Skip Wednesday or Thursday instead of Saturday, because then that would mean three days essentially between mail delivery events. I don't know how I could go that long between getting shitloads of useless ads that I immediately recycle.

DB - yeah I totally agree. I imagine it's tied to business mail volume, and there's prob some economies of scale savings by doing the two off-days consecutively, but from my pov I'd prefer Wednesdays no mail vs Saturday.

For all the failures, miscalculations, etc. that the postal service has made over the years, it's funny to hear of them actually looking at trying to achieve cost efficiencies. A better starting point may be not having so many shitty carriers who talk on their cell phones and listen to their iPods while dilly-dallying around instead of delivering my mail before freaking 6:30 at night. They could train a chimp to be a better carrier than the one our neighborhood has.

So is there any way the Pac-10 ends up with the #1 and #2 team (with the only loss by #2 coming against #1?)

Let's see...if TCU loses their bowl game, and Stanford wins theirs, and if Oregon beats Auburn by enough to drop Auburn below Stanford, it could happen. And whoever beats TCU can't do so convincingly enough to vault them over Stanford.

I still don't get how bowl bids work though. Is it possible that TCU plays Stanford?

I just called my brother, who was at the game. It was so loud that he couldn't talk, but he answered the phone and just held it up so I could hear the crowd noise. I got live Woo Pigging from War Memorial Stadium for about 5 minutes. Was even better than the game itself.

I'd like to see Notre Dame relegated to Mountain West conference or something. Why are they even allowed to keep trying, modernly? The game has passed them by. And I for one am glad. Now if we could just get NBC to stop carrying their crap week in and week out.

Notre Dame can't hold out from a conference forever. Pretty soon, when they do get good again, their poor strength of schedule will do them in. You can't contend for a BCS bid when your wins come against Navy and Tulsa.

Sad to see a lot of dropped passes. That changed the game for Mustain exponentially. He was forced to make difficult passes that he wouldn't have had to if his receivers didn't get a collective case of butterfingers.